Service companies love sneaky money.

That’s the money they earn by jacking consumers forced to agree to cleverly worded agreements.

The most recent example of sneaky money is Verizon’s phantom $1.99 fee for accessing the internet. The fee that doesn’t exist but is netting them millions.

Verizon isn’t alone, nor is the habit US-centric. The real beaut here in Canada is the famous System Access Fee which tacks on $6.95 to my cellphone bill – every month.

Then we have the famous “Administration Fee” that is literally crack for every company that has a monthly billing system. Don’t pay in full each month – here’s $20 to tack on your bill.

It doesn’t matter how much you pay on your bill if you still have one cent left owning – here’s $20 added on. So let’s say sake of argument a company has 100,000 late payers – that’s $2,000,000 of free money – a month.

Isn’t electronic billing wonderful .. and profitable.

If companies really want to convince consumers that they care and they are important stop your mainlining of sneaky money.